Friday, August 3, 2012

Hypocrisy keeps the Status Quo static... (reprise)

A few years ago I received an invitation to what was billed as "a global conference on Enhancing the Role of Philanthropy in Challenging Times." Hmmm.... that's intriguing, I thought. The idea of encouraging corporations to give back more to the community during a financial meltdown is certainly refreshing...

Then I read in the next line that the conference would be officially launched by the Crime Minister of Malaysia.

The third line boasted "a host of international speakers, including the wife of the PM."

Pukimak! That did it. I almost retched on my keyboard!

As if that wasn't sickening enough, the conference was going to be officially closed by the spineless minister of national unity, Koh Tsu Koon!

I immediately shot off a response to the perfectly respectable gentleman who had sent me the invite:

Almost instantly I received a reply: "Thanks for your frank and realistic comments. The challenge is how to manage the wicked to do some good... can we con them too or get caught by them?"

Well, at least my friend didn't attempt to deny or dispute the fact that the conference had invited, for the sake of political correctness and expediency, some notably wicked people to officiate. In any case, I felt it was my moral duty to elaborate on my visceral response to receiving such an invitation to participate in the philantrophic conference (for only RM900), so I wrote the following clarification, which I post here for the public record:

Anyone who publicly or privately endorses the crime ministership of Najib Tun Razak and Rosmah Mansor is tacitly expressing complicity with Umno/BN's abysmal track record on issues of justice, human rights and abuse of power.

Just as lending support to tyrants like Robert Mugabe, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush is tantamount to acquiescing with oppressive laws that allow the state to detain dissidents without due process, inflict torture on those suspected of political or religious heresy, and manipulate the mass media so that the public remains unaware of the colossal crimes committed by those in high office.

Corporations "play footsie" with such degenerate entities because they themselves are degenerate and hypocritical and are almost indistinguishable from their counterparts in politics. That's why there is a revolving door that facilitates a smooth exchange of personnel between big business and government; and that's exactly what keeps the nightmare carousel of human suffering going around and around seemingly without end.

However, the end is undoubtedly nigh for this despicable kind of self-serving "pragmatism" - all for the sake of an extra buck. This kind of cynical self-justification is what characterized the Pharisees and Sadducees in Judea. We seem to have learned nothing and made no spiritual progress after 2,000 years!

Nevertheless, the moment these archcriminals resign from office or publicly demonstrate remorse for their gross transgressions, I am of the opinion that they be should be offered the opportunity to restore their "good standing" in society by returning at least 80% of their ill-gotten gains to the national treasury and accepting that they are henceforth disqualified from wielding political power. No need for lynch mobs and lifelong incarceration.

I absolutely do not agree that you can cooperate with them in any positive or wholesome way - just as it would be suicidal for PAS or Pakatan Rakyat to form a political alliance with the ravenous and morally depraved Umno which deserves to exist henceforth only in cultural museums as an instructive relic of the Kali yuga.

Those of you who profess to be Christians: quit playing the role of Pharisees, Sadducees and Scribes for whom the Bottom Line is all that matters!Whose side are you on anyway? Yeshua the Reformer... or The Corrupt and Evil Establishment?How will things ever improve if you keep smiling for the camera and shaking the Sheriff of Nottingham's pudgy hand to clinch a couple of lucrative contracts... while secretly applauding and rooting for Robin Hood?